Shooting of six teens in North Portland 'nothing short of an ambush,' police say

View full sizeMotoya Nakamura/The OregonianJohn Canda, founder of the outreach program Connected and a longtime Portland gang outreach worker, arrived at the scene just after Friday night's shootings in North Portland. "It was a pretty traumatic scene" he said.

After a shooting police called "nothing short of an ambush" in North Portland that left six teenagers wounded, the mayor and other city officials said Saturday that police would be out in full strength the rest of the weekend in hopes of preventing retaliatory attacks.

Shots rang out just before 11:30 p.m. Friday near the intersection of North Jessup Street and Albina Avenue, where a group of teenagers were hanging out after Jefferson High School's first football game of the season. Six males -- a 17-year-old, four 16-year-olds and a 13-year-old -- were taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

The shooting had the highest number of victims of any single gang-related incident in the city in the past year, Portland police said.

"It's absolutely concerning to us," said Assistant Police Chief Eric Hendricks. "It's concerning to the point where we've got a maximum number of gang enforcement officers out on the street with gang outreach workers for the next couple of nights."

"The fact that six people were shot by two people in one incident where the guns were obviously fired into a group does make this stand out from other violence we've seen, whether it's involving gangs or not," said Lt. Robert King, a Portland Police Bureau spokesman.

Patrols will be increased this weekend. Hendricks said the school district was notified and had a "number of actions" planned for Tuesday when classes resume, and would consider increasing security at high school sporting events.

Portland Mayor Sam Adams said the shooting was part of an ongoing problem with "grudge matches" between African American gangs in the city.

"This is horrible," he said. "This is tragic. We've had too many African American teenage Portlanders murdered in this city, and we are doing everything we can to stop it."

Portland has seen 66 gang-related incidents in 2011, King said. The city had 93 such incidents in 2010.

"This is a problem for the entire city," Adams said at a Saturday afternoon news conference. "This is not a Northeast Portland problem. This is not just an African American problem or a problem that affects communities of color in this city. This is an everybody in Portland problem."

"We could have had six deaths or more last night," Adams later said. "It's only by sheer luck that our young Portlanders were injured and not murdered."

Police released few details about Friday's shooting, but said two African American males fired numerous shots into the crowd before fleeing on foot. No arrests were made as of Saturday night, and police said the neighborhood has a known history of gang activity.

"This was not a random act," Hendricks said at the news conference. "To be candid, what we saw last night was nothing short of an ambush."

Rosie Willis, who lives in the neighborhood, said the activity seemed to focus in front of a vacant house next door.

Willis raced downstairs to her front porch to find people running from the area. Soon, she said, police were "everywhere."

John Canda, a veteran gang outreach worker and founder of Connected, a youth outreach program, arrived at the scene shortly after the shooting.

"Officers and paramedics were out frantically working on people, and as quickly as they could get them inside and stabilized in ambulances, they were taken off," Canda said. "It was a pretty traumatic scene."

At least some of the teens were taken to Legacy Emanuel Medical Center, where Canda sat with their families as they waited for news.

"I looked at the parents' faces ... there was grief, there was pain, there was bitterness, there was anger, there was concern," Canda said. "They were afraid that they could possibly not see their children again."

Neither the names of the victims nor the schools they attend were released. However Jefferson High School football coach Anthony Stoudamire said one of the teenagers shot was one of his players, B.J. Henderson, a junior linebacker and defensive end. Henderson was shot in the calf and foot, Stoudamire said.

The mother of one victim told The Oregonian Saturday that her son had been released from the hospital. The conditions of the other victims were not known.

City leaders worried Saturday that the incident would spark retaliatory violence. Canda said some of the witnesses he spoke to made remarks that concerned him.

"Some of the younger kids spoke about taking matters into their own hands," he said. "The next few days -- we're not predicting anything -- but the next few days, especially with the extended weekend, the perfect weather, could prove to be interesting. So we'll keep an eye on things."

Various city groups stepped up gang-prevention efforts in recent months after 14-year-old Shiloh Hampton was gunned down in April at Holladay Park, less than four miles from Friday's shooting. Hampton wasn't the intended target, but he got caught in the middle of a gang rivalry when he walked out of Lloyd Center with a group of friends.

Canda and Tonya Dickens, a gang outreach worker with Brother's & Sister's Keepers, spent Friday night in the park with other volunteers, part of an initiative started after Hampton's death designed to pair young people with adult mentors.

They're doing all they can to prevent gang violence in the city, Dickens said.

"We're there every Friday night, talking to kids. Then I had my gang outreach team at the Jefferson game," Dickens said. "We can't be everywhere. But we are doing what we can do to run interference every way we can."

It's a multifaceted effort, Canda said, adding that the entire community needs to be involved in reaching out to young people.

"This activity has proven over time that people aren't necessarily afraid of consequences of violence or being caught," he said. "It's not going to be by force that we win the city of Portland back ... It's going to be because people begin to understand, 'Wait, I have a stake in this too. This is my community.'"Dickens admitted she's frustrated by the ongoing violence, but not about to give up.

"My job is to continue to get my hands dirty. The thing is, everybody's got to get their hands dirty. Parents, community, school, police -- everyone has a role. If we are going to save our community, we have to know where our kids are; we have to know who their friends are."

"If this is how the streets are going to be, we can't give our kids to the streets," she said.